The world used to be a bigger place
by LadyCassie
Summary: To be loved is to know the greatest feeling one human can give to another, but such love can also be a curse. Love makes the days feel longer, and yet still feel like there isn't enough time in the day at all. My elder brother was born out of duty, I was born from love, so maybe that's where it all began, my curse of love


**To be loved is to know the greatest feeling one human can give to another, but such love can also be a curse. Love makes the days feel longer, and yet still feel like there isn't enough time in the day at all.**

**My elder brother was born out of duty, I was born from love, so maybe that's where it all began, my curse of love.**

* * *

The streets of Winter town have long since changed, not that she could truly remember how they had been so long ago.

Time has a way of changing all that you once knew, but it also takes so much from those who are left.

The faces of her family have long since faded, they are dull, murky images that sometimes become clear, only to fade with time once more. The sound of their voices is a thing of the past, she knows her mother spoke to her of stories, and they remain, but the voice who spoke them has disappeared.

Of all her family, there is only one whose memory has never withered, one whose face remains clear in her mind, one whose very essence she guards as if it were the sun beaming down upon her skin.

Rickon had lived the longest out of her siblings. She had remained at his side his entire life, from the day he was born, up until the day he died. She had thought that her own love would be enough to keep him with her always so that the two of them might be together forever, but all had been lost when Rickon's final breath fell with a sigh.

Of all her family, his image never faded, his smile forever imprinted into her mind.

"Happy birthday, Rickon." The statue had become worn with time, his feature no longer crisp as they'd once been when first it had been craved, but still her finger can find the traces of where his name once was. "A millennium has passed, and the world has lost so much of its magic. I long for the days where we were all together, where I could still remember the sound of your voice, your hand in mine," she feels stupid, talking to her baby brother who has been dead nearly as long as she has been alive, but still, the words just seem to fall from her lips without pause. "I miss you, every day."

The stone is cold against her skin, her tears fall as if her loss was still fresh, and it is. They say time heals all, but her loss has never eased. The pain of losing the last of her family has lingered, and while there are those who still carry her blood, who are the descendants of her siblings, they are not hers in the way her siblings had been.

Winterfell has changed with time, the tunnels are no longer used to house the dead, but there are others beside her siblings and parents who find rest in the crypts, people who had come before them, and some after.

All those born after are people she has met, faces of nieces and nephews whose names are now all that remains in her mind.

"I don't recall Robb or Bran's faces, I can't picture Arya fencing in the courtyard, nor Mother's smile, or Father's eyes. Time has stolen them from me, stolen all but you."

She is momentarily distracted by an echoing of footsteps nearing her. She had asked to be alone, those who hold the Stark name know of her and the visit she makes each year on Rickon's birthday. In all the years she has come here, never once had another dared to disrupt her time with those of her family, yet the time has come it would appear.

Jon steps from the shadows, his form as always coated in black. His eyes glitter in the candlelight, lights have been fitted, but Sansa would walk this passage in the same mummer she had done when she was not but a girl clinging to her Father's large hand.

"I had hoped to find you here." He says, moving to stand beside her. His hands are cold as they take her own hand in his. "I feel that I should have known to look for you here on this day." He holds her hand, yet her hand remains lax in his grip. "Every time I got a lead on where you might be, by the time I got there you were gone."

"I didn't want you to find me."

* * *

"**Do something for me?**

**Live your life,**

**find your happiness,**

**wherever it may be."**

* * *

There is only pity in the eyes of her family when they look upon her. They see the girl unchanged by time, features frozen as if ice lingers beneath her skin. Often times her Mother will brush a withered hand against her cheek and comment on how not even the cold can steal the warmth from her skin.

The knowledge that she did not age came early on in her life. No wounds could linger upon her skin for more than a few hours, her hair if cut grew back seemingly overnight, and blood which had marked the start of her life as a woman, faded away only to never return.

If she is to guess, she is imaginably 10 and 7 names days old when the changes first appear.

She is never betrothed but that is ultimately something which can never happen when you never truly mature into a woman, and she is hidden away behind the walls of Winterfell, her secret kept by only a few.

Her brothers and sister grow before her eyes, they change not only in appearance but as people too. She sees the boy in Robb die as he becomes Lord of the castle after her father passes, and see's wisdom which blooms and takes over Bran's childishness. Sansa's watches as Arya leaves behind everyone's expectations to become the person she was truly meant to be, and she stands firmly beside Rickon watching his every mistake, his every triumph, she watches as his body changes yet inside he remains the same, forever the boy with wildness lurking in his vein, a wild wolf never tamed.

For all that Sansa might be frozen in time, the loss of watching those she loves most slip from her grasp into a place she cannot follow never gets easier.

"Sansa?"

"I'm here."

Rickon's an old man, no younger the young scrappy boy she remembers, but that changes nothing. She loves her brother now as much as she had then, vowing that she would be with him always, and upholding that vow.

He looks so frail now as lay in his bed, his children had been asked to leave, Rickon not wanting them to see him so poorly in his final hours. His hand in her own was still as familiar as the first day they met when his small fingers had wrapped around one of her own. She had known in that one moment that she would love him forever, this small brother her Mother had handed over to her.

"I'm scared." He whispered as if it were a secret he should not tell.

Sansa knew his fear, but at this moment, she needed to be brave. "I've never known you to be afraid of anything."

"I've never known a single day without you." There are tears in his eyes, eyes which have remained unchanged with time. They are still the eyes of the small boy who would run to her when something scared him. "I don't fear death. I fear you not being by my side on whatever journey I might find myself on in the next life."

She found herself smiling despite her tears. "I can't imagine a world without you either. And I would follow you forever if I could, but it doesn't look like this a journey I get to go on with you." Squeezing his hand, she tried to swallow back her tears so that she could speak. "I love you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry my love wasn't enough, I tried so hard and it still wasn't enough to keep you with me."

Rickon's tears slide sideways, dampening his pillow. "It was more than enough."

They were the last words her beloved brother spoke before he fell silent to her forever. She sat by his side long pass the time he grew cold to the touch, and she stood even longer in front of his tomb. The others knew to leave her be. She had had no need for the company of the living, for it was dead that she sought. Rickon was all she had left, and now without him, she was truly, utterly alone.

She is alone for so long that the sound of someone approaching has her tensing. She is not ready to be around someone; this loss has left an ache in her heart that she knows will never heal.

"Sansa?"

Jon Snow looks exactly the same as the last time she'd seen him. He is frozen in time, same as her, but the sight of him offers no comfort, she does the only thing she can, she runs.

* * *

"**I flee from the loss I know will come.**

**I run thinking that I might escape,**

**but there is no escape."**

* * *

Age. To grow old, to have a family, to watch them grow, to have a family of their own. They had never been things that Jon thought of until they were all taken from him. To realise that one day it would just be him, left alone in the world while those he considered his family went on to a place where he could never reach them.

He takes his leave in the night when there are none to bar his way. He leaves behind all he knows, carrying but a few small items that are beloved in such a way that they cannot be left behind. They are a single wooden wolf, craved for him by his Uncle when he was a boy, a cloak Sansa had gifted to him upon his last name day, and brooch. A Stark Brooch.

Through the years, his brooch is all that remains untouched by time. The cloak has been the first to become worn with time. The wooden wolf was still in his possession, although it too had taken a beating due to its time being constantly packed away and moved about.

He travels across the country, he doesn't need food to live, and he has skills which mean that he can afford a roof over his head at night

He never stays long, people tend to notice when one doesn't age, but he always keeps his ears pricked to news from the North, from the family he left behind.

He morns when the news arrives of the death of his uncle. Eddard had raised him as a son, had been a substitute Father in the absence of his own. The news of his cousins passing takes a certain toll upon his mind, that he is closer to being alone in the world each day that passes.

Sometimes when he moves Northwards, he fancies that he might return, might live out the rest of their days with them, so that at least he will have other memories, but then the pain of knowing that they will soon be gone appears and such thoughts become too much to bear.

He finds that even though there are many that approach him that relationships are a tricking thing when one doesn't age and the thought of being alone is one he eventually settles into. It is easier to not love then to face the pain of losing someone you deeply care for. Often when such thoughts occupy his mind, it is red hair and pouting lips which appear in his mind's eye, a love that was never pursued.

It is when rumour of Rickon's death reaches him, the last Stark he thought to be alive that he decided to return, for what he doesn't know, but the call of home is finally going to be answered, and as the first snow begins to fall, and the air begins to chill, he knows that he is finally home.

What he is not expecting is to find another ghost of the past, one he thought to have been long since passed, and yet her she stands. Beautiful and graceful as always, with eyes that scream of echoed pain, eyes that he believes to mirror his own.

"Sansa?"

* * *

"**There's only us now, you and me."**

* * *

"I can't bear to look at you."

"Sansa, Please. I thought,"

"You thought what? That you were some kind of freak? That you couldn't bear to stay and watch as your family slowly aged and died right before your eyes, while you remained unchanged? Tell me, Jon, are those the thoughts that plagued you as you ran away?" She was furious, and there would be no mercy within her words for the boy who had been welcomed into her family. "They were my thoughts, as I watched my siblings age and mature, bodies changing with time unlike my own. I wanted to be as far from them as possible as I watched them die, but I'm no coward. I was there with them all, right til the end, but where were you, Jon."

He was silent, because what answer could he give.

"You came back, only because you knew they were dead. Tell me that I'm wrong, tell me that everything I've said is a lie." The silence was once again her only answer. "You don't deserve to stand before them and ask their forgiveness. You don't belong here. You're not a Stark."

The last words were hissed and caused Jon to fall back a step.

For a time, they simply stared a one another, until Jon turned, steps echoing as he left. Suddenly they stopped, and when they return, they grew nearer instead of away.

"It was you. I left because I couldn't bear to see you die, and then once I was gone, I couldn't bring myself to return." His face is flushed in embarrassment, cheeks and ears tinted red. "Your right, I am a coward. I had thought to one day ask for your hand, and when I learned of this curse, I set aside all my love for you, because the fear of you dying, of having that love which was so strong already grow, even more, it would have surely raged and festered until I was a man unworthy of your love."

"You loved me?" She sounded unconvinced, eyes narrowing as she tried to see past the lies, he was surely speaking.

"Yes." He almost laughs. "I even told Robb I planned to marry you." The _before I knew_ part went without saying. "I still love you."

She nods, loose hair falling to frame her face as she looks at her toe's. "I don't know what it's like to love someone anymore. I can't remember sharing a moment that lasts a minute but felt like a lifetime. You're not the man I once knew, and I'm surely not the girl you were in love with."

Rejection is not an option Jon thinks as he throws himself at her. Hands heavy as they grip her in a tight grasp.

She eyes him, blue eyes strangely cold as they look from his hands to his face. "Release me."

"No." His breathing is heavy, his pulse loud in his ear. "I've admitted to being a coward in the past, but I've searched for you for a thousand years and I'll have you hear what I have to say."

She stood shocked still, but finally, she nods, and his grip loosens so that his hands can frame her face.

"God, I love you, and I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving, but I can see that it was a mistake. I can't go back and change my mistakes, but I'll spend the rest of my life chasing you if I have to too, because I know deep down that I have never loved anyone the way I love you, because your it, Sansa, your everything I had ever wanted and all I have left. I love you, and it hurts that you might not love me in return, but I can accept that because that's what love is, isn't it? Loving someone is sometimes looking at the person you love from behind a window, playing no part in their life, but god, Sansa. At least let me look, let me see you smile, let me see you happy. I can't take the thought that you'll never know anything other the grief and sadness."

"I'm broken in ways that I'm sure I can't be repaired." She smiled sadly, losing some of the coldness that has lingered in her eyes. "You can't see it, but I'm doing you a favour by turning you away. Everyone I loved died, Jon, and my heart, I don't it can take another heartbreak."

Pressing his forehead to hers, he is silent in the aftermath of her confession.

"I won't force you, but I'm asking for a chance, and maybe you won't give it to me today, but like you, I'm not going anywhere." He steps away then and leaves, he doesn't turn back, because this is where Sansa needs to make a choice for herself. One which he can't infer with, because he's said his bit, and now he needs to leave her to make her decision.

* * *

**"Some things can't be fixed"**

* * *

All the Stark of Winterfell know the story of Sansa Stark, of the curse which offers her no release from life. Every year before midnight on the day in which her youngest Brother Rickon died, she appears without fail.

She doesn't have a ghostly appearance, but she is a ghost none the less. She walks among the living, but she doesn't truly live, her grief and sorrow are plain to any who look at her. She is a legend among the Starks who gather each year to line the way to the crypts where she will pay tribute to her brother.

For more than a thousand years she comes alone, waves of sadness echoing off her being onto those who gather, but then one year, a man accompanies her, and slowly how she goes about remembering her brother changes.

Once she had stood in the crypts alone, her sorrow to not be shared with any other, now others gather down in the crypts with her. Each carrying a candle for the other souls who lay at rest in the tunnels beneath Winterfell. Stories are shared, people are remembered, and the true ghosts who sleep beneath Winterfell awaken to see their beloved Stark princess dance in the arms of a man who has chased her for a thousand years.

While they remain unseen to her eyes, they watch and wait, because they know that one day they will all truly reunite.


End file.
